


Between fate and the wish to be

by Itohan



Series: To walk amongst the stars (Star Wars AU’s) [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anakin Skywalker Has Issues, Anakin Skywalker Leaves the Jedi Order, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Anakin Skywalker is his own warning, Anakin’s room, Angst, Berukin, But very much anti soulmarks, Dark Anakin Skywalker, Established Owen Lars/Beru Whitesun, F/M, Force-Sensitive Beru Whitesun, Jedi Temple (Star Wars), Mental Health Issues, Minor Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Movie: Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Obsessive thoughts, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Padawan Anakin Skywalker, Planet Tatooine (Star Wars), Possessive Anakin Skywalker, References to Depression, Self-Harm, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tatooine Culture (Star Wars), Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Until Anakin comes along, dark themes, rare pairs, references to slavery, self-injury
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27924685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itohan/pseuds/Itohan
Summary: Her arm should be bare. Beru's arm should bebare.A soulmate is something rare, something considered to be a gift. Beru sees it as a curse.I am Anakin SkywalkerBeru is fourteen when she can't take it anymore.She sinks her nails into her flesh and keeps on scratching at those words until they bleed, until she cannot see them anymore.She's twenty two when Shmi is taken by sandpeople and Cliegg loses his leg. It is the same year Anakin Skywalker steps into her life and brings ruin to it all.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Beru Whitesun
Series: To walk amongst the stars (Star Wars AU’s) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1759843
Comments: 15
Kudos: 31





	1. Burns

Her arm should be bare. Beru's arm should be **bare**.

_I am Anakin Skywalker_

Soulmarks are a rare thing in the galaxy, most that do carry them are proud, Beru is not. Her entire life is predestined for her to meet her mark, robbing her of any semblance of free will. An existence as nothing more but a puppet, she thinks.

Beru is fourteen when she can't take it anymore.  
She sinks her nails into her flesh and keeps on scratching at those those words until they bleed, until she cannot see them anymore. Beru has to wear a wrapping around her arms for weeks but she doesn't care. Owen says it's the happiest he has seen her in months.

~~_I am Anakin Skywalker_ ~~

"Are you excited to take this off?" Beru's father asks and smiles at her when he begins to take the construct apart.

Beru's entire family is spread out through the small kitchen and once again she feels guilty.

She shifts her eyes and nods.

She had told them that it was an unfortunate accident with a womprat, she can't tell them the truth they would think her to be crazy. Instead she sits there silent and waits.

_**I am Anakin Skywalker** _

The words cling to her scars, hugging them as if they were lovers. They torment her with every flex of a muscle, with every breath she takes, reminding her that she'll never be free.

"What is it, Beru? Why are you crying?"

"Oh, it is nothing don't you worry." Her hands tremble as she struggles keep herself from grabbing the closest kitchen knife and carving the words out of her flesh.

"Is it the scars?" her mother asks. Beru's younger brother winces empathically when he gets to eye her arm. Their older sister elbows him in the chest and places a warm cup of tea in Beru's hands with a soft smile. It smells like home.

"Yes. The scars," she lies and blows the steam off her tea.

When Beru is seventeen Shmi accidentally sees her words.

Beru flees before Owen's stepmother can talk to her. The next day Beru doesn't come to Owen's and neither does she on the next. She ignores his messages.

Two weeks have passed when her mother tells her to make herself useful and sends her to the kitchen.

Her older sister is already there cutting vegetables and looking as disgruntled as Beru is feeling.

"Hey, Erina. Mom said I should help you, well more like forced me to but you know how she is," Beru grumbles. Erina only sighs and waves her over.

"Can you lend me a hair-tie? I don't want to walk back down again just for one," Beru asks her sister as she is pulling the sleeves of her blue shirt up to her bicep.

Erina takes one of her ties off from her left wrist and wordlessly hands it over to her before turning back to the cutting board. Suddenly she lifts her head again and at last addresses her younger sister with obvious annoyance.

"Beru, don't just stand there! You go and put those," she gestures to the mountain of already cut vegetables on another board in front of her," In the big pot over there. Not the small one, the big one! Got it?"

Beru nods and takes the board Erina has already prepared, it's a bit wobbly but manageable, she thinks.

She walks to the stove and looks for any kind of utensil to use so that she can push all of the pieces in it at once. Nothing there. Her hand would have to make do. She lifts the lid with her right hand, placing it on the closest kitchen aisle, then she uses the same hand to shove he vegetables into the pot.

When the final piece has been dropped into the water Beru lets her hand keep on hovering above the steam. It's nice and warm nothing like the scorching heat outside underneath the blazing desert suns. She swishes her hand through it once and then again, trying to form shapes out of the steam. She giggles.

Before she knows what she is doing Beru is dipping her right arm into the boiling pot of water until it meets her sleeves. It takes her five second to realize what she is doing and she screams.

~~I am Anakin Skywalker~~

Owen is the first one to visit her at the doctor's besides her family. He cries even more than Beru's mother did. If she didn't know better, Beru could almost think he was the injured one.

"It's alright, Owen, it is just a, uh, flesh wound."

"If that's a flesh wound to you then I don't want to know what you actually consider to be a grave injury!" he laughs and puts a hand on her left, uninjured, arm.

It doesn't take long for them to get together again.  
Only Owen's lips soothe the pain that claws at her heart whenever she sees her scarred arm. She can't tell him. So she lies whenever he asks her to tell her story, the story of those angry red lines woven into her flesh. Each time it hurts a bit less to hide the truth.

Beru is twenty and a red betrothal necklace is dangling from her neck when Shmi finally breaches the topic of Beru's mark.

"I am sorry."

A sudden voice from behind her almost sends Beru spiraling forward, the vase she was holding barely staying clutched in her hands. The movement pushes the sand on the vase's surface into her sensitive hand, eliciting a pained wince from her.

"Suns! Shmi, you almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Here let me take this."

Shmi puts the vase on a nearby table and pats the bits of sand clinging to her clothes off before stepping closer to Beru again.

"I realized that I never told you that I am sorry about everything that happened three years ago." Shmi sighs. "I should not have looked, then this..." She eyes Beru's right hand and takes a step closer. "Might not have happened."

"It's been years, Shmi and I've- I've never been angry. Least of all at you. My arm is my own fault, not yours or Anakin's, it is my mistake. But thank you for not telling Owen. I-"

The sleeve of her shirt has ridden up, exposing the angry red marks that go up from her hand towards the entire length of her arm.  
Beru immediately pulls it down again. But she does allow Shmi to hug her, she doesn't even hide her tears.

She's twenty two when Shmi is taken by sandpeople and Cliegg loses his leg.

Suddenly the farm is as ghostly as the dune sea, lifeless and dark.  
Her limbs grow heavier with every day since Shmi's disappearance, then her heart and then her mind, until finally she doesn't leave the house anymore. Sometimes a scorching pain envelops her with every step she takes - Sometimes she hears Shmi screaming inside of her head.

Her hand is itching again, the rest of the arm is most likely soon to follow.

"Owen can you get me-"  
Owen and Cliegg both look up at her from their game of sabaac. The bet was the last piece of blue milk cheesecake she had baked earlier that day - it was the first time she has seen either of them excited in weeks.

There is a matte grey tone that has overtaken Cliegg since Shmi's disappearance, it is worrying Beru. They don't have the money for a prosthesis, just the hoverchair alone cost them a fortune, it is the sad reality.

"Forget it, it was unimportant." Cliegg needed her creams more than she does.

Sometimes Beru wishes she had just cut the arm off instead.

"Master Cliegg! Master Owen!" C3PO called loudly from somewhere outside.

"What does that droid want this time?" Cliegg grumbles.

"Don't bully him, Cliegg! You are too old for that kind of behaviour," Beru teases and stands up.

They rush up to the courtyard from where voices sound, Cliegg lagging behind Owen and Beru.

A young man and a woman stand next to the excited the C3PO who was wildly gesturing to them. They look to be about her age. The man is tall, taller than Owen even, and towering over his female companion and making the small immaculately dressed woman seem even smaller. They don't look like they belong, a cautious voice in the back of her head whispers and she fears for the worst. If they are Hutt enforcers-

"Might I present two important visitors?" the droid boast and the tension in her shoulders eases.

"I'm Anakin Skywalker," the man said.

She crumbles, the foundations breaking down until all that's left is a silent scream.

"Anakin?" Owen's eyes go wide. "Anakin!"

Beru raises her left hand from her side and bites down on it until the taste of copper is invites her mouth.  
She won't say them.  
She won't say.  
She won't.  
She.

"Anakin the Jedi."

For a second but yet an eternity he glances at her, his blue eyes as deep as she imagines any ocean to be, then he looks back towards Owen, ignoring her. His right hand is trembling at it's wrist almost as if he too felt that pull and all she wants to do is hide.

Instead she flexes her own right, trying to relieve an itch she knows is never going to go away. She hopes neither of the two visitors see the scars.

"Owen Lars. This is my girlfriend, Beru. I had a feeling you might show up."

"Is my mother here?"  
She wants to tell him that no, his mother is being tortured by Tuskens at the very minute, that he needs to save his mother... but she can't. No sound leaves her throat and so she stands there in silence waiting for someone, for anyone, to tell him.  
She feels as if this is a dream, all of her nightmares come to life.

Cliegg is the harbinger of the news.

They step into the cool insides of the homestead and Beru shivers, she doesn't know why.

With every word waves of anger and grief so deeply foreign to her that they could not be her own, flicker over Beru. Yet as soon as it comes it disappears again, leaving the taste of ash behind.

"I'm going to find my mother."  
Anakin says with the same conviction as if he had said he is going to breathe. Beru believes him. Shmi is alive.

Shmi is alive - it pulsates through her veins with every heartbeat.

She watches Owen and Anakin, then Padmé step outside to Owen's bike. After taking one last look at Cliegg who is shedding angry tears, Beru follows as well.

When Padmé steps away from the embrace and back into the homestead, Beru rushes out of the shadows towards Anakin, who'd already mounted the bike.

"Here." She throws a carefully wrapped package at him. He catches it easily, eyeing her as he takes a peak underneath a loose part of wrapping. It's the piece of blue cheesecake Beru had saved up from dinner.

"It's not for you," she begins, suddenly feeling too open and very much hesitant. "Give it to Shmi when you find her, she'll be hungry."

"I will."

They don't say goodbye and they don't hug but when she feels something tugging a her mind, reaching for her, she reaches right back.

He brings back a corpse and leaves behind a village of dead Tuskens in his wake. When he and Padmé´ and even the droid are gone and all that's left behind of Shmi Skywalker is a gravestone and a grieving family, Beru wonders if Anakin tried to destroy his mark as well.

~~_I am Anakin Skywalker_ ~~

Though she cannot see them, buried beneath layers of scars lie his words on her flesh, forever on her skin. They burn.

On the night he comes back to take her, Beru dreams of dying stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read the Attack of Clones novelization again and thought, ‘huh why not put Anakin and Beru together once again?’ And so I did.  
> Here is the anti-soulmate soulmate au that nobody asked for!
> 
> Let me know your thoughts if you want to! :)


	2. Anakin the Jedi - Part One “Traces”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin's mark is something solely his. Something special just like him. There has to be a reason why he is one of the few people that have a soulmark! These words belong to him and so does the person who will one day speak them. It's the one thing he knows to be true even through the Jedi's teachings.  
>  _And then his words are gone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the following one were originally one chapter, however, together it was way too long so it became a two parter.

"Mom, what do these words mean?"

His mother let's go of the little shirt she had been working on.

"They mean that there's someone out there who is meant to be with you," Shmi says, gesturing to the stars in the sky. "Whoever they are, wherever they might be at this moment... you'll meet them, because you have their words, Ani, and they have yours. You are soulmates."

_Anakin the Jedi_

He reads those words over and over again, tracing his soulmate's writing with the tips of his fingers. Each line and every letter. It brings him comfort during the nights when the howling of desert storms terrorizes his dreams.

He cannot wait to meet them.

.  
.  
.

Anakin is nine years old when he is freed and becomes a Jedi. There's no mother to mend his clothes anymore.

"You need to learn on your own, Padawan. There can't always be someone around to help you."

Anakin pretends as if he doesn't see Obi-Wan's eyes lingering on the long sleeve underneath which Anakin's words are hidden. A Jedi should have no worldly bindings. The first lesson Obi-Wan taught him. Instead of frowning at the implication, for once he listens to his Master's words, wanting to understand the religious body he had been destined to join his entire life.

"Us Jedi, we are like a machine, you see. We only work if everyone does their part, even if it's just something small like fixing the tears you've gotten into your own robes."

"Yes, Master. I know." Anakin barely stifles an annoyed groan at the fairly obvious slight and Obi-Wan chuckles.

By the time he has managed to finish fixing his robes on his own, his hand is covered with bloody needle pricks. But his Master smiles at him and brushes through his hair as he calls him self reliant, so Anakin smiles as well.

He's doing more and more on his own and he's proud. He doesn't protest when the Council tells him to abandon the worldly chain that his words are. It's a sacrifice he is willing to make if only it means they will finally accept him as one as their own.

"You are so much more," Obi-Wan says.

**______**

Anakin tries so hard but he doesn't ever succeed.  
He is fifteen, friendless and cannot ever make the Council happy. He's all and lanky and with every day he loses more of the little boy his mother loved so much.

The Masters are eyeing him critically, watching his every move.

"Too arrogant," the first voice whispers.

A cane is stomped on the ground.

"Too attached."

"Too reckless." Master Windu adds.

Anakin grinds his teeth and thanks them. Tears prick in his eyes, shaming him from the inside. He quickly wipes them away with his wool sleeve, ignoring the stares at his sniffs.

No matter how often he asks, never is he ready for the trials. Never is he a real Jedi to them. An outsider. An intruder. Never a brother, a friend. Never just Anakin.

He steps out of the council chamber and begins his walk back towards his room.

The halls of the Jedi Temple are humming with life. Younglings running together, shrieking happily. An elderly Master being carried by his Padawan. Three Knights giggling together. The feeling is warm and soft and he wants to burry himself in this soothing happiness.

The calm lasts until Anakin gets to his room. It's cold, always too cold and never warm enough. Never as warm as his real home. The posters he's hung across the walls only seem liveless and shallow today, grave imitations of what he wants them to be. The bright colours bite against his eyes and he hates everything about it. How small it is. That nothing about it is individual. Everything is wrong. Nothing is right.

He throws the door shut behind him.  
The anger is back.

He sheds off his robes, the tunic, everything that makes him a Jedi. He unbraids his Padawan braid. He kicks his boots into a corner.

Who is he without it? Is he a Jedi? Is he a man? Is he a boy?

His eyes fall down onto his right arm. Tensing from his anger, the words bulging on his skin. _Anakin the Jedi_

He strokes across the mark tentatively, caressing each word, tracing each line.  
He's Anakin. He won't ever be anyone else because somewhere in the stars there is someone who is going to love him the way he is. Someone that he can call his. The emptiness in his soul, the part that is missing is with them. They will meet.

**______**

Anakin is nineteen and he is dreaming of his mother. She's dying. She's in pain, crying and begging. "Ani! Ani, please help me!" She's calling for him but he cannot answer.

When he wakes up his Master is by his side, cradling his head. He hasn't done so since he was a little boy. Anakin is not on Tatooine and he's not with his mother. Obi-Wan and him are on a ship on their way back to Coruscant, on their way to protect the Senator he hasn't seen in so long.

The moment they step into the elevator, he can feel himself getting giddy. His heart beating fast inside his chest.

"Relax, Anakin. Everything is going to be fine," Obi-Wan says, nudging against him.

"I am relaxed, Master," Anakin laughs. It might be a bit hysterical, not that he'd admit it. He hopes he doesn't reek of sweat.

Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow.

"If you say so, my dearest Padawan."

**______**

Padmé is the same as he remembered her.  
She is everything he himself is not. Strong but kind and beautiful. She makes him stutter and blush and every bit not the Jedi he should be. He might love her a bit.

And someone is trying to kill her.

So they go to Naboo.

And he kisses her.

But at night he still follows the words on his skin, the ones left behind by the ghostly hand of his soulmate.

**______  
  
**

The beginning of the end is when Watto tells him his mother has been sold, Anakin decides. How often had he imagined coming back here and rescuing her? Her awaiting him in this very shop? That dream is gone.

The Lars' homestead is quaint like any other moisture farm on Tatooine. Nothing about it is special. It doesn’t fit his mother.

"I've come to see my mother," he says to C-3PO, his eyes already on the house that she must call her home. His mother. He's going to see her again.  
Padmé and him follow behind C-3PO as the golden droid calls for the occupants of the farm.

Soon after a young man and woman step out, both dressed simple and looking at him very unsure. Possibly even in fear.

"I am Anakin Skywalker,” he introduces himself offhandedly.

His eyes keep flickering all over.

“Anakin?” The man almost seems to stumble over the words, overtaken by surprise.

Anakin’s senses are too alive, to overloaded, he can't concentrate. He wants his mother. He ants peace and quiet. He wants-

"Anakin the Jedi."

It is the quiet voice of the blonde girl that tears his world apart. It's her.  
His right hand trembles as he contains the urge to reach out to her. They only a foot from each other, if he wanted to he could just pull her towards him-

Anakin forces his eyes to lock onto the man in front of him. Away from the girl. He needs to know where his mother his. Why isn't she here to greet him?

"Owen Lars. This is my girlfriend Beru. I had a feeling you might show up."

"Is my mother here?"

A wave of unease rolls of Beru, anxious, rapid and overwhelming. Anakin squeezes his eyes shut at the vortex of emotions overtaking him. 'Calm down' he wants to scream but he can't it's as if his voice were gone.

"No, she's not." A gruff voice answers in their stead. The man it belongs to is confined to a hoverchair, old and injured. But his eyes are kind and Anakin would have almost eased the tension in his shoulders if not for the words the man said.

His mother is not here. Once again Anakin’s only companion takes hold of him, anger and hatred. Why isn't she here? She was meant to be safe! She was meant to be-

Padmé places a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's hear what they have to say," she whispers.

"Cliegg Lars," the man introduces himself. "Shmi is my wife. We should go inside. We have a lot to talk about."

And something inside Anakin dies.

**______**

Anakin is nineteen and the closest to taking his own life he's ever been.  
His mother is gone and these people sitting with him at this table won't save her, they are leaving her to die, to rot alone and unloved. He wants to cry and to scream and to rage and- He just wants his mother back.

"I'm going to find my mother."

He will not be the one to abandon her. Not when he can feel her pain and suffering as if it were his own.

Anakin let's himself be led out by Owen towards his speeder bike. In the distance the first lights were fading as the two blazing suns begin their decline. With he bike he might reach her by nightfall. It's the only way to reach his mother he has and he will take it. He will bring her back, he just knows it. She can't be dead.

"Thank you," Anakin curtly directs at Owen. The other man responds with a nod. He's fidgeting with his hands and his nervousness, but Anakin doesn't have the time for family bonding. So he doesn't ask. He doesn't care, and Owen leaves back into the cool shade of the homestead. The only thing that matters is his mother and... Anakin's eyes linger on the vast desert in front of him. He needs to come back alive.

Padmé’s lips move but he doesn't hear her. He moves on his own, responding through a veil.

"I'll find her," he promises and allows her to embrace him with her tiny arms. He feels like dying at the thought of what is to come.

Then Padmé too leaves.

Anakin straddles the bike, his hands tightly clinging to the handles as if they were the last thing keeping him afloat.

Hasty footsteps run towards him and a voice calls out towards him. He could have ignored it and already left. But he doesn't, he lets her. He lets Beru give him the piece of cake for her mother, a piece of her soul. He lets her believe in him and he allows himself to believe as well.

He will bring his mother back and everything will be right again.

**______**

Anakin is nineteen and his mother is dying in his arms.

Anakin is nineteen and he slaughters an entire village. Men, women, children, They suffer for what they've done to his mother. For what they've caused! They on't deserve to be alive while she is dead.

Anakin is nineteen and he doesn't know who he is anymore. Not even Padmé’s soothing can ease the torment within him at the pain and grief for what he's caused, for what he's become. For what he has lost.

**______**

Geonosis is going to be where it ends.

Anakin is going to die before he hits his twentieth year. He's going to die without ever seeing his home again, without having said goodbye to...

The chains on his hands dig deeper into his flesh, dig into his words.

He breathes in.

He's going to die and there is nothing he can do to change it. He's going to die. He' going to die. He's going to die. And he's afraid. Afraid of dying. Afraid of losing everything. Afraid of....

Will he ever be remembered? Will there be someone to mourn him as his body lies dead in an arena, torn apart and bleeding? He can't even touch his mark, find comfort in it like he has done so often over the years. He's left alone with his thoughts until too they will be gone. Until he will be gone.

His mind wanders to Beru. He imagines her in her kitchen, her eyes locked on a blue milk cheesecake. He is calm. He won't mind this being his last thought, her being safe. He breathes out.

The thoughts come back, scratching against every defense in his mind. Doom and darkness and pain. So much suffering. Death.

Padmé is shivering next to him.  
They are going to die just as certain as he is going to take his next breath. They will never the sun again. She will never see her family again and it's his fault.

The cart comes to start with a harsh jerk.

"Don't be afraid," he whispers to Padmé.

"I'm not afraid to die," she smiles at him. It's a sad one. "I've been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life."

He shakes his head.

"What are you talking about?"

"I love you."

"You love me?" His hands tremble. There are no words, they die in his throat.  
His gaze falls down and his heart pierces with regret. "No, this isn't love. I won't let you die with a lie. I can't love you." He thinks of his mothers words when he was just a boy.  
"There is someone out there that I love, but this someone isn't you and I am sorry."

Padme turns towards him, looking into his eyes, searching, lingering. The contact is deep and gentle and for a moment he imagines himself truly loving her, building a life with her.

Blinding light engulfs them and they arrive in the arena.

**______**

Anakin is nineteen and he is alive.  
He flexes his right arm and recoils at the sensation. No warmth and no flesh. _As if he never had any in the first place_. Smooth metal.

He traces over the place her words would have been, following each line and every letter that isn't there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter (which I’ll update tomorrow) we’ll finally get to see what happens that causes Anakin and Beru to meet once again and results in him taking her with him :)
> 
> I hope this chapter wasn’t boring but I felt that the difference between Anakin and Beru needed to be illuminated. And in the next part we’ll see how these differences clash.
> 
> Btw. I don’t think this story will only be three chapters since I already put this one into two, so I took away the specified chapter count that was originally here.


	3. Anakin the Jedi - Part Two “Fate”

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anakin leaves the Order behind.

It's been three months and yet everything is always wrong and still nothing is right.

In the dead of the night Anakin lies awake, tossing and turning. His arm lies heavy at his right. Cool against his skin. _A constant reminder of his failure, of his recklessness. A mistake that could have cost him his life._

_A mistake that cost him his words._

"So there is nothing left of me."

He can't accept it.

**_____**

Life at the temple quickly goes back to the mundane it was before.

"I remember doing this for you when you were younger," Obi Wan chuckles. "Ah some things never change." At last Anakin is handed his robes back. Now smoothly folded.

"Thank you."

Anakin accepts the heavy robes and places them into his closet. They're nothing for his arm. He frowns.

"Anakin are you- Oh."

"No, no, Master it's alright. I was just in thought," Anakin lies and imitates a small smile. It probably resembles a grimace.

His Master offers him one last shoulder pat and a sigh. Heavy and sad, closer resembling a sound an elderly man should make, and all Anakin feels is pity. There are more important things to be done at the moment. Funerals to be planned, a war to be fought.

He knows what Obi-Wan is trying to say. They'll have to talk later, though Anakin knows that talk won't come.

"Goodnight, Anakin."

"Goodbye, Master."

Obi Wan gives him one last look, lingering at the door, before stepping out into the halls of the Jedi temple.

**_____**

Anakin pulls on his glove, slowly watching the golden metal disappear underneath the leather. This time he doesn't trace words that are not there. He won't have to anymore.

Beru has the last piece of him, Anakin the person. She carries it in her chest, her heart, her mind and the arm where his words reside.

_"They mean that there's someone out there who is meant to be with you."_

His mother's voice burns in his eyes, sinks his heart and shatters his chest. He owes it to her. There has to be a reason his mother ended up with that family and met his soulmate. Her sacrifice, her capture, him meeting Beru - it is fate, foretold by the force.

The Jedi cannot be his destiny.

Anakin throws his small leather bag over his shoulder. There's no need to quiver anymore for he is free. He has always been free and free he will remain.

He's already failed his mother once. He won't fail her again.

**_____**

_Step into the hangar. Act like you belong. Smile._

Anakin waves at the young Twi'lek Knight working on her starfighter.  
Then he gets into his own, pushes in the coordinates and adjusts the bulky hyperspace ring attached to it. Within five minutes he is gone.

He scraps the ship in Mos Eisley and steals a new one. It's almost laughable.  
Nobody here would ever report a ship missing.

He parks the stolen, albeit a bit beaten up ship in Mos Espa. It's his now, why hide it? Doing so would only seem more suspicious Anakin decides with a shrug.

On his way out of the city gates he spots a speeder bike. Shiny and new, calling out to him. It's perfect.

Anakin smirks at the Rodian leaning against what soon will be his. "You will give me your bike." As an after thought he adds: "And the papers."  
Better safe than sorry.

**_____**

The dry wind cuts against his cracked lips as the bike picks up speed. Biting painfully into him. But it's not far anymore. The homestead is only growing in size as he crosses the desert. And then Anakin stops. Then the force whispers to him.

"She's not here."

It doesn’t take long for her to be found.

She's is not even far from her home. Picking up mushrooms as if she had no care in the world - as if the storm wasn't getting worse. He wants to scream. Hadn't she learned from what happened to his mother? What if the Tuskens came? How could she just put herself in danger like that?

The speederbike moves closer until it comes to a halt in front of Beru's feet. The basket of mushrooms falls to the ground and she freezes.

"You are back... You shouldn't be here. You shouldn't- Your temple and-"

He jumps off the saddle.

"Did you think I would leave you behind?"

"I don't know."

There's shouting in the distance, almost completely hidden by the desert's howls. It's her name. Owen must be calling for her, Anakin realizes. Yet she doesn't respond, she stands there frozen in time as the harsh desert storm blows around them, staring at _him_.

He offers her his open palm.

"I will teach you," he shouts. "You have it too, this power, the Force. I've felt it, Beru, that day when my mother died. You have it."

"I-" She falters. But her gaze keeps flickering into the direction Anakin expects the homestead to be.

"This is the way, the path you are meant to take, Beru! If you stay here, you'll never learn the true meaning of the power you possess, of that part of yourself. You will never understand, never be real, never be _complete_. I can teach you!"

Inside his mind's eye Anakin sees her stepping away, rejecting their destiny. Rejecting him. Abandoning him. He won't take it. _He won't let her._

He sees it happening in a dreamlike state, a haze. Following her, shouting, screams and death. He kills everyone in sight, everyone who dares to stand in his way. The homestead will burn behind him and with it so will Beru's past. And then he'll take her with him.

Anakin's hand is still there, open, inviting. _A chance..._ He repeats it in his head like a mantra over and over, begging the force for just this once to be on his side. His mind is screaming and his hand falters as a new thought whispers to him.

He'll be left alone.

Yet the real Beru is itching closer until finally their fingers brush, then they close around one another.

"I'll come with you."

The only thing she leaves behind is the betrothal necklace she had worn around her neck and a lone basket of mushrooms. They'll blame the Tuskens, but after what happened with Shmi he knows they won't search for her.

**_____**

They don't make it far until he decides they can't ride into the storm any further. They'll have to take shelter, just for this night.

The wind howls angry outside of the abandoned cave, reigning down destruction and doom. But it won't reach them, here they are safe. The bike is parked right next to the entrance, hidden behind a large boulder, a beacon of hope. Tomorrow, Anakin thinks, tomorrow will be the last he is ever going to have to see of this desert.

"There's nothing we can do but wait. So wait we will," he says with one last glance at the storm raging outside.

Anakin can't ignore the way she is shaking, how she keeps fumbling with her sleeves as if the thin material could warm her.

"Wait." He pushes an arm out in front of her, pointing at the beige dress she is clothed in. "I think don't this is enough. You're shivering."

He hadn't even noticed her not being dressed for this weather, that he didn't even give her the chance to. Loose beige house clothing is all she's wearing. Way too light. But Anakin knows he would not have been able to convince her if he had not taken the moment. He had to rip her out of there. He had to.

"It's alright," Beru answers quietly, forcing her body to keep still. It doesn't fool him.

"No, it's not." He sheds off his coat and holds it up to her. "Here. It's only going to get colder, Beru, so take it."

She nods and takes it out of his grasp but the smile has disappeared from her face.

Anakin slumps down until his back lies down in a warm bed of sand. He shivers. Only one night, one night and then they'll be gone. Off to a better place, he tells himself. A better life. Together.

Her uncertainty hovers all over the cave, mudding the air and sinking down on him. How he could have ignored her force sensitivity? But he'd teach her shielding, he would teach her everything he knew if it would make her happy. If it would make her stay by his side. If it would make her love him.

Anakin closes his eyes, trying to block out every trace of his feelings into the smallest box of his mind. The box splinters, shatters, bursts into his consciousness with the power of a tidal wave. His thoughts come out, the ones that won't ever quiet. They are loud and red and angry and they burn with pain.

They are so loud, his thoughts- So dark and full of rage and greed and lust and want- He hates himself, he hates- Why can't they ever leave him be? His mother in his arms, soothing his cries- So loud- Death and suffering-

Anakin presses down on them until they obey and fall into a buzz. But they won't ever leave.  
Focus on your surroundings, he tells himself as his breathing calms and his mind opens itself up to the force.

The cave is empty and cold. And dark, a darkness as deep as if it had never seen even the smallest ray of sunshine. Yet there is life. The sole patch of grass growing in the shade of farthest corner of the cave. The water sloshing in his canister. Each drop, alive, glowing. The grains of sand, he could feel every single one if he wanted to. A heartbeat, pulsating, pumping blood. Live.

He breathes. She's still standing, watching him.

"Sit." He pats down on the ground next to him.  
Sand sticks to his palm, itching and taunting.

He doesn't need to open his eyes or use the Force to know she's sitting down as far as possible from him. But at least she doesn't run. Not that she would have come far in this weather. _'She would die within hours'_ the sandstorm whispers. But she was born here same as him, so he knows she won't run. Not when she already made her choice.

"Why did you come back?"

"Why did you come with me?" he retorts and finally opens his eyes.

She's fumbling with the heavy material of his cloak before closing it around her shoulders, hugging it around herself tightly. It looks right. It _is_ right.

"As if you'd have given me another choice after what you did with the sandpeople."

"You are right. I wouldn't have." he admits.

Anakin barely refrains from shrinking back when she's suddenly lying down next to him. Their pinkies brush. It's soothing.

And he realizes he doesn't understand her.

"I won't ever come back here, will I?"

"No, we won't."

Anakin does not tell her about the vision of Owen dying on his saber, whispering Beru's name with his last breath. He also does not share the image of her trapped in his arms as the homestead burns behind her. Those are his to keep. _Just like her._ Instead he crosses his arms over his chest and closes his eyes again, listening to Beru's slowing breathing. Wondering what she might be thinking.

They stay like that for hours.

It is only when Beru has fallen asleep that Anakin dares to brush away the hair that has fallen in front of her eyes.

**_____**

"I think it's time we go back on our way. The storm has died down enough for us to go on, so it won't be far to Mos Espa anymore."

"Then it's off to a better place, Somewhere you won't ever have to remember this hell." He smiles at the thought and accelerates his pace. It's only a bit to the bike. _They'll be happy._ "Somewhere you'll be happier," he declares.

Beru's steps behind him slow until they fully stop and the only sound is Anakin's breathing. "We'll finally leave it behind us."

He turns to touch her arm but she flinches.

"Why do you think so?" Her face flushes in anger. "Just because of some words connecting us? You, you don't know me." Her rage burns hot and raw against Anakin's mind and he doesn't want her to. He just wants her to understand. "Owen knows me! Cliegg does and your mother! But you Anakin, you don't know me. I never hated this life. I hated... I hated-"

She tears her sleeve up. Exposing her skin. He breathes in. The galaxy comes to halt, shifts, blurs, dies, and then comes alive again in his breath. Her hand. Her arm.  
Scarred. Red and white, like a nightmarish painting. How could he not have noticed sooner?

His teeth grind painfully at the sight. _It is wrong,_ and he desperately wants to reach out again, wants to touch the scars her words are hidden under. But he knows she won't let him, that she'll shy away again. So he doesn't. Instead he palms the grip of his saber, seething as the hilt begins to bend under the strength of his metal hand.

"Who did this?"

Who would dare to take away her mark? To rob her of the words left on her skin. _His word marking her._ Before his eyes flash the bodies of dead slave women, women with their limbs cut off. Slavers pissing on their wounds, spitting on their words, branding them as if they were cattle.  
 **"Tell me!"**

Beru laughs but is not the soft one Anakin heard her offer Owen during dinner on the fated day they met. It is harsh and grating like sand. Like Tatooine.

"Don't you see?" Her grip goes slack and the beige fabric of her shirt covered her arm once again. Her hand remains uncovered. "I never wanted this mark. I went to extreme lengths to defy fate fate, to avoid meeting you and saying your words. And yet..."

Her voice softens and her face loses some of it's hard edge. "And yet we are here, you and I. My entire live I was freeborn, the sister, daughter, and granddaughter of freeborns. One day I might have been the mother to freeborn children myself. Only to be shackled by fate. Can't you see why I didn't want this? Why I am still holding on? Can't you, Anakin?"

_The only piece of happiness a slaved child had. The only thing he had owned besides his name. No one could ever own him, not while he is wearing her words on his skin. Not while he can still trace every word, every letter and every line. The one thing to call his own. Something special, something rare even across galaxies._

"No."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter from Anakin’s point of view. Everything following is back to Beru.
> 
> Oh and I hope Anakin’s behavior doesn’t seem to come out of the blue. I mean in canon he’s already so obsessive over Padmé, so in a universe where he’s on of the rare people to literally be born with a soulmate his possessiveness would be up by 9000%


End file.
